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Abstract
During the earliest waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, much media and public discourse focused on the effects of increasing precarity on already vulnerable populations. As in-person work added a layer of viral risk and unemployment drastically exacerbated economic precariousness, the category of 'essential worker' gained new prominence in these conversations. In this paper, we focus on the complicated relationship between two groups of workers depicted as marginalised and exploited to different degrees during COVID-19: trafficked persons and anti-trafficking service providers. Though media coverage did not conflate these groups, it applied a capacious understanding of precarious labour and structural inequalities that encapsulated different types of essential work. We draw on media produced by frontline anti-trafficking and sex workers' rights organisations between March and May 2020. Even with renewed attention to macro-level harms, many publications still emphasised individualism over collectivity. This emphasis on singular organisational representatives-frontline workers-as heroic rescuers mirrored larger, normative anti-trafficking discourses. At the point at which the 'new normal' was nowhere in sight, COVID-19 served as a flashpoint to reconsider current intervention strategies and instead emphasise a critique of precarious labour along multiple vectors.
Keywords: essential labour, precarity, COVID-19, inequalities, critical trafficking studies
Introduction
On 30 July 2020, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) launched their annual campaign for the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. For their first COVID-19-era campaign, UNODC highlighted first responders in the anti-trafficking sector, those 'committed to the cause' through medical, therapeutic, legal, and carceral work. Their introductory materials foregrounded this frontline work as essential work: 'During the COVID-19 crisis, the essential role of first responders has become even more important. Particularly as the restrictions imposed by the pandemic have made their work even more difficult'. Even during the early stages of a global pandemic, these service providers continued their work to support trafficked persons and 'challeng[e] the impunity of the traffickers'.1
The UNDOC might have been the most prominent voice in framing essential labour thusly, but they were not alone. A range of anti-trafficking organisations with national and international reach also emphasised the place of anti-trafficking work in essential work discourses. In this paper, we build upon this narrative, focusing on two groups of workers: labourers identified as 'vulnerable' to exploitation or human...